by Hazel Kelly
“Whatever. The point is, this is a good thing. And if you want to overanalyze it to death and come up with a bunch of bullshit reasons you should sabotage it and cling to the past, then you and Aiden are never going to work out.”
I swallowed.
“And it will be all your fault this time.”
I opened my mouth.
“Just like it was all the other times you hid your feelings away.”
I closed my mouth.
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe he thought you didn’t like him? That you didn’t want him to make a move?”
I shook my head. “Of course not.”
She shrugged. “Well, you had me fooled for a long time. I genuinely thought you weren’t interested in him when we first met, that you guys were really just friends. Until I got to know you better.”
“But we were friends.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“Yes we were.”
Fiona stood off the bed and faced me. “You guys were never friends, Lucy. You were a ticking time bomb.”
“That’s not true.”
“And now the bomb’s gone off and you don’t know what to do about it.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
“You want my advice?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You should stop looking for excuses to be miserable about what happened and start looking for reasons to be happy about it.”
“Cause there’s nothing I can do to change it?”
“No, dummy! Cause it’s a good thing!”
“I want to believe that, Fi. Really I do, but I feel like I can’t enjoy it until I know our friendship is okay.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Why?”
“Cause your friendship, as you knew it, is fucking over.”
Chapter 10: Aiden
All she said was “yes.”
I asked if she got home okay and all she said was “yes.”
What a bunch of bullshit?!
I was glad she was alive, but why even respond if that’s all you’re going to say?
I don’t know what I expected from her. It’s not like I asked a particularly open ended question, but still. Twenty four hours had passed since the morning after we slept together. She could’ve said something mildly lukewarm.
Whatever. I couldn’t wait for her to come around and start making sense. I had to see her. Not just cause I had to, but because I needed to know if she would be my date for Claire’s wedding.
I considered texting her before I left work, but she always worked Mondays. And if I asked her by text, she would either take her sweet time getting back to me or she would just say “yes.” And frankly, that would piss me off.
I picked up some yellow flowers- the closest thing to sunflowers I could find- and drove to the salon. Worst case scenario, she wouldn’t be there. But even then, I’d still have an opportunity to intimidate her creepy boss, which might help me vent some of the frustration I was feeling.
The little bell rang when I pushed the door open. Sure enough, her boss was standing behind the desk and turned stark white when I walked in. As for Lucy, I saw her before she saw me. She was wearing black pants and a loose black shirt. Her hair was pulled back low, but a chunk of it was hanging in her face as she dragged a small paintbrush over some aluminum foil that was attached to her client’s head.
A moment later, she saw me through the mirror in front of her station and turned to look at me.
I raised the flowers as a little wave.
She held her pointer finger up and turned back to her client while the other stylists took turns looking my way.
I strolled over to Chuck. “Hi Chuck.”
“Hello.”
“Do you remember me?”
“Lucy’s boyfriend?”
“That’s right,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
“You look great,” I said. “With all your teeth and no broken ribs.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No,” I said.
He swallowed and looked down so I was staring at his bald spot.
I kept my eyes on him until he raised his head again.
“You can wait for Lucy over there,” he said, gesturing to the seats lining the front window.
“Thanks, Chuck,” I said. “Good talking to you.”
He didn’t look like he agreed, but that was fine by me.
I took a seat on one of the chairs by the window, laid the flowers beside me, and watched Lucy work. Foil after foil, she painted strands of hair on her client’s head, nodding enthusiastically as the woman gabbed at her.
I tried to keep my eyes from lingering too long on the curve of her ass, but I let myself steal a few glances while I waited.
Finally, she laid her hands on her client’s shoulders, gave her a little squeeze and headed towards me, wiping her hands on her apron as she approached. “Aiden.”
“Lucy,” I said, standing.
“Are those for me?” she asked, glancing at the flowers.
“They were either for you or to put on Chuck’s grave, but he seems to be behaving himself today.”
“Thanks,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
She pushed the chunk of hair out of her eyes. “I’m working.”
“I can wait.”
“I won’t be done for another hour.”
I leaned in to whisper in her ear. “You really think if I could wait fifteen years I can’t manage another hour?”
She smiled.
“Plus, we need to talk.”
“About what?”
“Not now. Over ice cream.”
“I haven’t had dinner.”
“So get pistachio.”
“Please don’t sit here and watch me for the next hour.”
“I swear I’ll only look at your ass and nowhere else.”
She shook her head and looked down.
“You won’t even know I’m here.”
“Of course I will.”
“No you won’t. I’ll be as silent as you were when you snuck out of my apartment yesterday morning.”
She rubbed her arm with her hand. “I’m sorry. I just-”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“Yes, I do an-”
“Buying my ice cream will be sufficient.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. As long as that isn’t a euphemism.”
“It’s not. Besides, money can’t buy the kind of sweet cream we can make ourselves.”
“Damn it, Aiden. This is my place of work.”
“You call this work? This is nothing compared to how you-”
“Just stop, okay,” she said, leaning towards me. “Just sit down, and don’t think filthy things about me while I’m trying to do my job.”
“I won’t if you won’t,” I said.
She marched back to her station. Without wasting a moment, she started peaking in the little foil flaps on her client’s head, and when she stole a glance at me, her face turned bright red.
I smiled and lifted the flowers to my nose, burying my face in them like they were Lucy’s perfectly groomed snatch.
The hour I spent watching her flew by. After all, now that I felt like I was seeing her for the first time, there was so much to admire about her. Every time she engaged with someone else, they left smiling. Every time she marched across the floor, she did so with purpose.
In fact, she was incredibly sexy. Even when she was sweeping the hair around her station, she had a unique grace, a grace she’d somehow retained when she was spreading her legs for me and soaking my eager tongue.
“Ready?” I asked when she finally approached.
She nodded.
I led the way, opening the door for her.
She waved at the other girls on her way out and exhaled when we hit the sidewalk. “You can’t just show up at my job like that, Aiden.�
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“Cause I’m too distracting?”
“Cause it’s not professional,” she said. “The younger girls get in trouble when guys hang around waiting for them.”
“Why?”
“Cause it interferes with the client experience.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize,” I said. “Well, if anyone complains, you can assure them that the only person I’m interested in interfering with is you.”
She shot me a look out of the corner of her eye. “What made you stop by anyway?”
I stepped up to the passenger side door and opened it. “I had to see you.”
She rolled her eyes and tucked her feet in the car. “You should’ve called.”
“I thought about it, but I was sort of uninspired by your last text,” I said, shutting the door.
“What are you talking about?” she asked as soon as I sat down beside her.
“What do you think? We have this incredible night on Saturday, and then you totally disappear without a trace. Well, that’s not true. You forgot your underwear.”
She pursed her lips.
“And then you don’t answer my text all day, even just to let me know you’re alright.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want an apology. I want an explanation. Didn’t you have a good time on Saturday?”
“Of course I did.”
“So why the third degree?”
“I just needed to process what happened.”
“What is there to process?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “We’ve never done anything like that before.”
“So?”
“So I guess I was just worried things would be weird between us.”
“Look,” I said. “I don’t want things to be weird either, but weird is not returning my messages. Weird is sneaking out of my apartment in the middle of the night.”
“I know,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “But hooking up with each other is weird, too.”
“Yeah, but that’s good weird.”
Chapter 11: Lucy
He was looking out the front window, but hadn’t started the car.
“I guess it was good weird,” I said softly.
“Better than good,” he said, turning to look at me. “Don’t you think?”
I nodded.
“So how about I won’t be weird if you won’t be weird?”
“Does that work any better than I won’t think dirty thoughts if you won’t?”
A mischievous glint flashed in his eyes as he started the car. “Were you thinking saucy thoughts about me while you were working?”
“Maybe,” I said, looking out the window.
“Tell me something you were thinking about,” he said, pulling out onto the road.
I shook my head.
“Oh come on,” he said. “Prove you’re not an unimaginative prude.”
My jaw dropped. “I am not a prude.”
He leaned on his console and fixed his eyes on me. “Go ahead. Try and shock me. I dare you.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to play this game.”
“That’s a shame,” he said, stopping at a red light. “I think you would’ve really liked to hear what I was thinking about you.”
I swallowed.
“But if you don’t want to know then-”
“No,” I lied. “I don’t.”
He shook his head. “I guess I’ll just have to show you then.”
Was he crazy? I couldn’t talk like this with him. He was my friend. It was too awkward, too embarrassing, especially since I had no idea where his boundaries were.
I rested my elbow on the center console. “Well, you better show me that ice cream place first cause I’m getting hangry.”
“Hangry?”
“Yeah, hungry and angry. Hangry. Like Brad and Angelina. Brangelina."
“Oh,” he said, his brows coming together. “I think I get that sometimes.”
“You think?”
"I bet the Brangelina's don't get hangry."
"Probably not. What do they have to be hungry or angry about?"
“Say no more,” he said, laying his foot on the gas. “You’ll need energy for what I have in mind anyway.”
I rolled my eyes. “Have you always been this filthy or are you turning it up a notch now that I let you have your way with me?”
“I think I’ve always been bad, but being with you certainly hasn’t mitigated anything.”
I shook my head and smiled out the window. If a guy as hot as Aiden hit on me in real life, I wouldn’t even be able to make conversation. Then again, this wasn’t my real life. I didn’t know what it was. “So where are we headed?”
“I was thinking The Gelateria,” he said.
“But we’ve been there a thousand times.”
“For good reason.”
“You don’t want to try something new?”
“Nope.”
I leaned my head against the seat.
“I’m hankering for their double chocolate. I need something slightly bitter after all the sweetness I had on Saturday night.”
I felt my cheeks go rosy. “Give it a rest, loverboy.”
“Careful now, I could get used to that.”
He parked the car at a meter and had already put some coins in by the time I joined him on the sidewalk.
“What flavor are you going to get?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, walking through the ice cream shop’s open door. “I’m thinking either stracciatella or pistachio, but I’m feeling a bit torn.”
“Get both.”
“No. That’s madness, and you know it. Neither of those flavors can share the spotlight.”
“What did you get last time?”
“Lemon.”
He grimaced. “That doesn’t really help.”
I pursed my lips. I rarely made a bad choice, but there was nothing as dissatisfying as ordering the wrong flavor and wishing it were something else.
“The stracciatella will probably taste better mixed with my chocolate.”
“Why would it be mixed with- oh- I see what you did there.”
He smiled, obviously pleased with himself.
“For your information, I won’t be sharing my ice cream with you in any way so you have nothing to worry about.”
“As if you’ll be able to help yourself.”
We ordered our ice cream and carried our cones to the little patio out front, taking seats across from each other on the little metal chairs.
“So, now that you’re not hangry anymore,” Aiden said. “I have something I need to ask you.”
“Shoot,” I said, crunching a piece of dark chocolate.
“I was wondering if you would be my date for Claire’s wedding?”
I stopped licking my cone. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” he said, taking a large bite out of the side of his chocolate ice cream. “And if it makes you feel better, it was actually her idea.”
“What?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I wish I thought of it myself, but she realized I didn’t have a date before I did. Anyway, she said she’d love you to come.”
“Wow.”
“In fact, she said you were the only woman in my life that she actually likes.”
I laughed.
“And she seemed to think I’d behave better if you were there.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“So will you come?”
I filled my mouth with ice cream to buy myself time.
“It would mean a lot to me,” he said.
I would never turn him down, but I relished the semblance of control that being hesitant seemed to give me.
“Well?”
While the pathetic little girl in me did a cartwheel, I shrugged. “Sure. If it means that much to you.”
“Thanks, Lucy. It does.”
“Nothing.”
I lowered my cone and looked around. Everyone else was minding their own business from the people in suits having ice cream cones as their one reward all day to the kids hanging out with their skateboards, staring at their phones while they ate in silence.